


Burning February

by OsirisGalaxy



Category: Les Miserables, les miserables-Hugo, les miserables-all media types
Genre: F/M, Feelings are discussed, Mentions of sex work, PWP, nonfatal injuries, slight mentions of internalized racism, sort of, very slight d/s undertones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:38:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5451992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OsirisGalaxy/pseuds/OsirisGalaxy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eponine wanders the streets of Paris and finds a friend as familiar with the cold as she.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning February

**Author's Note:**

> Idk it's sort of porn without plot but sort of not? Also my first time publishing nsfw?? Have at it.

February burned. It was a month of winter without warmth, no glowing Christmas candles on windowsills or bakeries lit up by sparkling silver frosting and lamplight. It brought a bitterness, the cruelest ice clinging to the sidewalks and bridges, refusing to melt into the soil and muck that gathered in the gutters and pooled ankle deep in the street. This slush soaked into everything, even the soundest and warmest boots, but Eponine was without such a luxury. Her bare feet were chapped and numb, red and raw on the bridge and an unfeeling blue on bottom, but all hidden by mud and dirty snow. It had been her mother's turn with the boots, and the tired kindness she usually showed her girls was nonexistent with the prospect of dry feet on the line. Azelma had cried as Eponine tied strips of her dress around her stiff toes, while their mother had wordlessly stuffed stolen pamphlets in the boots to fill the spaces. Azelma was asleep at home now. She did nothing but sleep these past few weeks, and when she walked it was with a delirious stumble. Eponine didn't know what the meant, and almost didn't want to.

Frigid water dripped from the drainpipes and made little waterfalls. Eponine placed her palm under a stream and held it there as the water bit at her nerves. Back home, in Montfermeil, she had gone to school, and the schoolmaster had taught about other lands where it was always warm, and there were too many rivers and waterfalls to count. Eponine fancied herself there, dressed in a clean chemise and dainty silk slippers, walking along rainforest paths and drinking the clear water from where it gathered in huge bowl-like leaves. The waterfalls would be warm like a bath, the steam would keep the chill away, and she could wade and float next to the-

The name of the harmless little amphibian in her fantasy escaped her. She knew she had learned it, it was a dark green salamander of some sort, why couldn't she remember it? Biting her tongue, she retracted her hand and tangled it in her skirt to dry it, which was now hiked up more than what was acceptable for a girl her age, not that it mattered, no one of dignity was out at this hour. The dripping hem stuck to her knee and scratched with the grit it had collected. 

The only noise aside from the clatter of the watery sewers beneath her came from the taverns scattered about, where men either without a home or avoiding it were collected, drinking and laughing and eating, likely with a girl around Eponine’s age or significantly older on their lap. She could wipe the mud from her hands and join them, she could get a few sips of brandy and a roll to eat, but only if she could stand the taunts, the jeers at her missing teeth and filthy dress, to be the “rotten bitch” and saved for the man with the least money. He would make her face down, and would pay the innkeeper instead of her, and she could maybe get another roll or two and some cheese if she let him call her a different name. She shook her head, it wasn't worth it tonight.

As she pondered, the door to the tavern across the street was thrown open, and a man shoved out. The innkeeper was bellowing at him, all while holding another man back. The culprit just adjusted his jacket and spat at the man's feet, and he turned, thin shoulders hunched, and began trudging down the street. Eponine recognized him in an instant.

“‘Parnasse!” She called, and his head jerked out to see her, but only for a moment before turning back forward to be hidden by his collar.

“Hullo, ‘Ponine.” He grumbled, and Eponine didn't care how obvious it was that those two sentences were the obvious extent of their conversation that he wanted to carry out. She scurried over, her frozen feet almost clacking on the cobblestones.

“What do you think you're playing at? Runnin’ off like that? We’re not strangers.” She caught the sleeve of his thin spring coat and he shivered.

“Jesus, ‘Ponine, your hands are cold as death.” He removed her hand with just his finger and thumb, and she frowned.

“No surprise there, not all of us can pinch good gloves. Why ya acting so off?”

“S’nothing.” He said quickly, and his shoulders went even higher. “Bad hand at cards.”

“Worse than my hand? I shouldn't think so.” She grinned and stuck her hand against his face to make him even colder, and he yelped in both surprise and pain and whipped away, holding his cheek and sucking his teeth in pain. Eponine looked at her hand to find it sticky with blood, and with a gasp she jerked his shoulder back so he was facing her, and a long cut from his ear to his jaw wept red and bright in the glare of the streetlamp.

“The hell happened?” She wiped the blood on her skirt and he shuddered again at the sight. His face burned with shame and cold.

“Picked up some baubles, got caught. The fellow screamin’ almost lost a watch, good one too, nice military type. He got me…” He gestured to the cut. “Boss broke us up and sent me out.”

“It looks bad.”

“I've had worse.”

“Not on your face!”

“Shut up, ‘Ponine!” His voice cracked in that and he swore under his breath, turning away and covering his wound with a hand, but ripped it away once he realized that he had gotten blood on his glove. “Merde…”

Eponine slapped the bloody side of his face when his hand was out of the way and he cried out, eyes squeezing shut in pain. “Don't talk to me like a dog.” She hissed, and tears pricked in his eyes. “Now take me home.”

“Not walking all the way to Gorbeau-”

“Your home. M’cleaning that for you.”

“After you hit me?”

“It taught you not to insult me, no?” He didn't answer that, and with a small sigh Eponine took his cravat off in a fluid pull and held it to his face. “Hope this isn't your favorite.”

“It’s not.”

“Good. Hold it fast, right there.” He obeyed with no lack of glaring, and he took a few steps, motioning with his free hand for her to follow. She couldn't help but give a little bounce on her damp heels as she followed. He was a gutter rat just like her, but he had a talent for theft, and would have something for her to eat and escape the cold with. Not only that, but being needed was a good change, and he wasn't too bad to spend time with if he was caught in the right mood, and she knew she could get him there.

The heel on one of his boots clacked with each step as the stitching had begun to come loose, and water seeped in. Still Eponine felt a pang of jealousy, at least he had a shoe at all, even if they looked too small. 

“What are you doing out here anyway? Barefoot, no less.” He asked carefully as if she would slap him again for inquiring.

She didn't, but she crossed her arms over her chest. “I always take walks, you know that.”

“You're going to lose your feet.”

“I got no use for them. ‘Sides, I gave ‘Zelma pieces of my dress, if I rip off any more I might as well be naked.”

“You should get some slippers at least.”

“Oh? You got some lying around?” When he didn't answer she gave a bitter smile. “Didn't think so.”

He stayed in a dark little hovel just below street level. The former owner had died and had nothing worth selling, so Montparnasse squatted there in the forgotten room, and had to pick his way in for lack of a key. There was only one small window and it faced the concrete wall the step were set into. He had pinned an old coat that was in near shambles to act as a curtain. Inside was a bed, an armoire, a tub on its side, a one pan stove, and two mismatched chairs crowded by a small table, all left behind by the dead man and threatening to collapse at the first wrong touch. To Eponine, it was near luxury.

She went in before Montparnasse even got his foot in the door and sighed at the lack of cold wind, even if the chill still seeped through the brick. The tiny stove was rusting at its feet, but she didn't care as her shaky hands lit the pieces of wood and paper with the book of matches she found tucked in the grate. A fire crackled to life and she let the heat revive her fingers, and then her feet as she leaned back to hold them up. It almost hurt, like pins being stuck all over, but the fact that she could feel at all was nearly a blessing.

Montparnasse locked the door behind him and removed his coat before joining her on the floor. He took off his boots with some difficulty, then peeled off his soaked socks and let the fire warm him. The bloody cravat lay on his shoulder, dampening his already stained shirt, and when Eponine saw that she remembered why she came.

“Any water?” He gestured to the pitcher on the table in response to her question, and she got up and fetched it. She soaked the cravat, and when she pressed it to his face he flinched. “What?”

“It's cold.”

“Of course it's cold.” She scoffed, and when she put it against the cut again he shivered, but stayed still. Every now and then his eyes would flutter or he would wince from the burn of water against an open gash, but he still remained in place until the pitcher turned red and his face was clear. He wouldn't look at her with those bright, liquid eyes, but Eponine couldn't blame him, she wasn't a pretty sight like the grisettes he charmed, though they lacked a certain something she had an abundance of. 

“Don't lock me out.” She mumbled before getting up and taking the pitcher with her. She unlocked the door and the wind scratched at her twice as hard than before. She bit her tongue again to keep her teeth from clacking and poured the dirtied water into the street to trickle into the sewer, then waited under a drain pipe for the rainwater to fill it up again with one of those tiny waterfalls. She wondered if Montparnasse hated the snow as much as she did, if he wanted to swim in rainforest ponds too. She wouldn't swim with him though. He would be scarred up and twisted under his finery, just as she was all bones and grit. He was too real, too human for this fantasy. She would swim with Monsieur Marius, who at times felt like a phantasm, as far away and untouchable as the pearls of the high society ladies on the boulevard. He would be soft and clean and unmarred, and he would never call her a “rotten bitch” like the men she typically had in her company. All men except Montparnasse. He snarked and snarled and spat like a wounded animal, but he didn't call her names. They knew too much about each other.

She trudged back and the door was indeed unlocked, and she went back into the glow that was almost warm. She looked at Montparnasse who hadn't moved an inch. He was indeed handsome, even in the state he found most discomfort it, when he was without the powder he used religiously to cover the tawny shade of his skin. He was lighter than she and her father, but the shade of brown was still there, though no one knew less of the origin than he. His hair was black as night and usually sculpted to perfection, but the fight and the damp had loosened it into a natural curl. He almost looked like Marius, but all long bones and sharpness. If Marius had been stretched to the brink of his joints snapping.

“Quit letting the wind in.” He remarked, and she shut the door behind her.

“You're welcome.” She said irritably as she walked over. She took the cravat, now rinsed but damp, and wrapped the handle of the pitcher with it and held it over the warm stove. 

“What are you doing?”

“Taking a scrub. That's my payment.” 

“You don't have clean clothes.”

“I don't care.” 

At this he rolled his eyes and stood up, going to the armoire and rifling through it until he found a nightshirt. “ I suppose you're staying here.”

“Right.” She cocked her head at him playfully and he just rolled his eyes as he laid the shirt on the bed for her to take. The cut was browning into a thin scar, but she kept her mouth shut about that devastating fact. “So, you bring your conquests here? What do they make of it?”

“I've never brought any here.” He said with a tinge of annoyance. “We find their place, or take the back room of an inn.”

She noted the word “their” instead of “her”, but it was a vice she couldn't judge without hypocrisy. “You ever get paid?”

He sighed. “I'm usually doing the paying, ‘Ponine. Or it's free.” 

“I get paid.” She wasn't sure if it was quite something to brag about, especially when she was usually paid in stale bread, but he didn't have to know that.

“Good to know you found something you have a hand for.”

“You would know.”

“I never said I didn't.” He watched idly as she set the now steaming pitcher on the table and pulled off her chemise, letting it crumple to the floor. As she dipped the cravat in the pitcher and began scrubbing at her face he picked up her dress and looked it over, then took the pitcher and poured about half into the tub.

“Hey! I still need that!”

“I'm doing you a favor, hush.” He set it at her feet and put her chemise in the shallow water, then began wringing the grime and blood out. It didn't look like he had any soap, so scraping the filth off with only his hands was the best he could do. Eponine allowed it with a pointed look now that she had to ration her bathing water, but she almost forgot her put out mood when she had worked the layer of dust and dirt from every inch of herself. She couldn't use perfumes or fancy soaps and lotions, even Montparnasse had to resort the natural scents of flowers which of course did him no service in the dead months, but a lack of staleness in itself was almost as good. She dipped her hair in last, furiously pulling the knots apart and scratching her scalp even if it made her eyes sting with tears. Montparnasse was beating her chemise against the side of the tub to loosen the deepest stains, and when he finished he draped it over a chair to dry.

She turned to him still bare, her sharp hipbones glaring in the faints light of the stove and she reached out and squeezed his shoulder with care. “Thank you, ‘Parnasse.”

“It was nothing.” He rarely smiled beyond a schadenfreudian grin or a foxlike smirk, but the corner of his mouth twitched and Eponine understood the meaning. She turned away, still feeling his eyes on her and she slipped into his nightshirt that was long enough, but rather broad and threatened to expose her shoulders. With a little laugh she clambered into his bed.

“Your hair is getting my pillows wet.” He whined, and in response she just threw one at him. He was too easy to tease. Marius wouldn't complain, he'd just bring her more. If she squinted Montparnasse looked close to him, and she felt a pull at her heart. Montparnasse had no idea about the games she played, the real use she had for him beyond a close comrade in misery. 

He changed out of his clothes into a different set of shirt and loose breeches, and she realized he had given her his only nightshirt. The scars across his back could almost be seen through the worn cloth, she had run her hand across most of them and stitched even more together. He climbed in next to her as they had done since they met, it had been natural, an easy feeling almost like trust between them from the moment they met as children. She had watched him turn from the gangly gamin to the handsome criminal, and he had seen her bend and twist and become only more wretched, though in the blissful dark they knew intimately, you couldn't tell. His only worth, his sharp face and endless eyes, her sore mouth and bruises, lost in blindness. They had huddled for warmth the first time, and he had kissed her a month after that, and the moment his shoulders broadened, her hips fanned out, it had been more. Sometimes it hurt, their bony edges moving against each other, her wolf teeth sinking into his shoulder and drawing blood, his long claws leaving white hot trails along her thighs, but it was an intimacy they could only achieve with each other. Eponine always came back for it, but she knew that the day Marius’ hand laid claim to her she would quit Montparnasse’s attentions without a backwards glance. He didn't know, he didn't have to. She would be whisked away without a word, and that would be all. She knew her intentions left a sick smear on her soul, but wolves felt no guilt.

She pressed herself against him as soon as he was settled, and without need for words he bent down and kissed her, lips full and wine-red. She wanted to be slow, to feel the care of a lover, but that was not a gift she would receive from Montparnasse, it was something she waited for from another. She pushed her tongue into his mouth and he made a pleased little noise in the back of his throat. She was on top of him a moment later, and his hands found purchase at her waist. One of his thumbs skimmed against her lowest rib and she held herself flush against him, as if she wanted to rip him open and nestle inside. The meaning was clear and he shivered as she broke the kiss, and he couldn't help but lean in after her at the loss of contact. Eponine smirked at that, he was so pliant when he was away from the eyes of the world. She shifted and straddled one his legs, and tilted her head down to nip at his throat. When she pressed her lips to where she had just bitten he gasped, and he could feel her razor sharp smile against his skin. All the while she had been slowly circling her hips on his thigh, little shivers of pleasure bolting through her with each movement, and she felt him stiffen beneath his breeches.

“Already? Usually takes a bit.” She commented in a mock-sweet tone. “You've been wanting it, huh?” He didn't answer, just moved his hand lower and squeezed her ass, and she purred. “When you were doing my laundry like a good little wife, you were watching, I saw you. Staring at me.” She took his hand away and moved it under the already lifted hem of the nightshirt, and he let out a sigh at the warm wetness there. “Wanting this, yes? Right here. You can't get enough of it.”

“Yes.” His voice sounded hoarse and she laughed, raspy and low, and he began stroking at her center with his long, fine fingers.

“I knew it. It's the best you've had, isn't it? Those two-a-penny grisettes, all shy, quaint little milkmaids, they aren't enough. They don't tease like I do, they don't play like I do, they don't fuck like I do-” she was cut off by a gasp tearing from her lips as he quickened his pace, and she knew he was smirking in the dark, foxlike as ever.

“You were saying?” He switched the rhythm just to catch her off guard again, and with a growl she moved up to sit on his chest.

“Put that smart mouth of yours to better use.”

He lowered himself the rest of the way and Eponine almost wished she could see his eyes, but remembered how that defeated their purpose. He dragged his tongue along the entire dark split of her sex first, then slowly with more finesse he moved with shorter, concentrated strokes. He came to rest his hands at her thighs, locking her steady as she gasped at the particular way he pressed his tongue against her, but she could only squirm as he moved faster. Her eyes fell shut and she let out another moan, this one louder and more urgent, and quickly succeeded by another and another until she thought the occupants above them might be blushing in their beds. He paused only to suck at her peak, and the noise that tore from her chest was so bright it was almost maidenly. She had forgotten how wicked his mouth was, it had been some time since they had fallen together like this, longer than usual. There was a point where they met every day, in alleys, in parks, in the houses Montparnasse broke into. That had been a miserable summer, sweltering and humid, they only found respite in each other. 

She wanted to ride his face to the end, but that would put a stop to the game before it truly began. She rocked back to sit on his chest again, and in the faintest light from the dying fire she could see the shimmer of her wetness across his mouth, the sight was almost delicate, his lips parted as he took his first real breath since beginning, his pitch black hair tossed about. It could almost be mistaken for innocence. He had to have been able to peer through the darkness as he gazed up at her, she wondered what he saw. Before her mind wandered she pulled the nightshirt off, and she felt his palm skim up her stomach and rest on her sternum for a second before cupping one of her small breasts, his thumb tracing circles over her nipple and making her give a pleased little noise. He stopped only to remove his shirt and breeches, and they barely felt the cold lapping at their skin. Not letting herself take too much care, she leaned down and kissed him again, tasting herself on his tongue as her hand wandered lower. His hips canted slightly at the touch, and she obliged his silent request by wrapping her hand around his member and working at him with slow, steady pumps of her fist. He bit at her lip in response, hard enough to draw blood, and she mewled when it stained their mouths. One of his hands began to wander again, but she caught it at her thigh and seized his wrist, pinning it above his head and quickly matching it with the other so that he was held fast, entirely exposed and prone. His breath hitched at their position, but he still lined himself up to her as best he could, and she snickered a bit at the effort and use her free hand to guide him inside her. The sound he made was deliciously wanton as she seated herself atop him, and the angle was already causing a new bloom of heat between her legs. Eponine rolled her hips against him in torturously slow strokes and he writhed beneath her, whining at the pace and pulling at his wrists, but the way Eponine was putting pressure on him prevented the action. 

“‘Ponine…”

“Tell me what ya want, ‘Parnasse.” She tensed around him as she moved upwards and he nearly whimpered. 

“Faster.” It wasn’t quite a plea yet, and because of that she lowered herself even slower, and she could see the muscles in his throat shift as he choked back another noise.

“You want me to do what faster?” 

“Move, come on-”

“Say it.”

“God! Eponine, fuck me faster.” When she stopped altogether he gritted his teeth. “Please! Jesus christ-”

That was the begging she wanted, and she quickly bent down and pressed a kiss to his sternum before pitching her hips into a much quicker rhythm, and he cried out with the sort of unabashed pleasure only she could draw from him. She couldn’t help but moan alongside him, each movement hitting that place deep inside her that made her mind go blank. He was saying something, but it was only a series of garbled half-sentences, each one running over the other and drowning out the meaning. Her legs began to ache from the exertion, but it only added to the urgency, the sheer need of the heat and friction they created between them. Montparnasse threw his head back into the pillows, his arms stretched and sore and his wrists starting to bruise, but he could feel each twist and restless tightening of her sex through his abdomen. He nearly screamed when his climax hit him, and all but sobbed when Eponine rode him through it, her mouth open and spilling out shrill curses as she came alongside him. 

She fell on top of him, releasing his wrists and burying her face into his neck. He brought his arms down and held her despite the ache, and they both did nothing but catch their breath for a few moments. She only moved away from him when the night air stung her back, and she reached down to find the nightshirt among the tangled sheets and pulled it back over herself. He silently followed suit with his own clothes, and was redressed just as the last embers of the fire went out, and not even the shine of their eyes could be seen in the dark. Eponine reached out and her palm found the planes of his chest, and she gave him a small push so that he lay down flat again. Montparnasse was a sneering, cold, arrogant individual, he wasn’t humble and caring like her Marius, but he was comfort, familiarity, and it could be enough for now. He turned on his side and she nestled into him, her lips grazing his collarbone in a gesture that could be taken as a kiss or a simple touch. To answer, he tangled his fingers in her thick hair, running through the now clean strands and doing his best to avoid the newly made tangles. With some shuffling they had the single blanket across each other, and Eponine’s eyes grew heavier by the second as his breath evened out into sleep.


End file.
